


I Used To Be A Warrior, But Then I Took An Arrow To The Knee

by SleepingReader



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Backstory, Battle, Gen, Heaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 05:35:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20465873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingReader/pseuds/SleepingReader
Summary: Aziraphale is seen limping heavily when he returns to heaven. Let's say it's an old injury to his heavenly form, if so, how did he get it?Prompt for the Summer 2019 Good Omens Fan Exchange! More coming in a bit!





	I Used To Be A Warrior, But Then I Took An Arrow To The Knee

‘Oh…._fuck_,’ Aziraphale said, for the first time in 6000 years*. The white light engulfed him, and he felt himself Rise towards Heaven. As he did, he also felt what seemed like an odd sort of dust fall from his body starting from his ankles, and with a flash of anxiety, he realised that it was his human form.  
_Fuck_, he emanated for the second time. He would have said it, but he wasn’t currently in possession of a mouth. If he had been, he might have yelled. The light was bright, so much brighter than his bookshop. There was definitely a scream in the ethereal plane as Aziraphale’s former eyes decided to quit. 

*He had written ‘damn’ in 1867, but that had been a misspelling of the word ‘dam’ 

Aziraphale vaguely wondered if he would see his life flashing by as he discorporated. It never had time to get out of The Beginning, since everything happened in the blink of a second.  
And then, with an odd sort of _thump_, he landed on his feet. It was bright around him, but not the endless ethereal light of the Rising. This was the grey, businesslike light of Heaven. Immediately, Aziraphale’s leg attempted to collapse.  
He had not thought of that for 5999 years.  
But now, with the stress of discorporation, with the threat of Armageddon looming, and with the fact that his life hadn’t had time to properly flash in front of his eyes yet, he remembered the Battle. 

_The Principality shouted words of encouragement to his battalion. They raised their weapons, swords, knives, bows, arrows. The Principality’s golden helmet flared with the same roaring fire encompassing his blade. The same fire reflected in his golden eyes.*_

_*Was the helmet simply the same colour as his eyes, or were helmet and eyes the same thing? No one knew._

_It was an old language, older than time itself, and his troops obeyed it perfectly. Luci-No, Satans armies swarmed down upon them like the flies one of his soldiers wore so proudly, and the Host of Heaven fell upon them like a swarm of angry bees._  
Time hadn’t been invented yet, so the war took both seconds and millennia. Wings beat, feathers seared, and the Ground that God had created burned and grieved.  
The clouds would have cried if there had been any water in them. Offences were thrown as easily as a child would throw a snowball, and spears soared through the air as numerous as confetti.  
The Principality let his battalion into the fray of it all, beating back the enemy with wings and blade and, sometimes, a well-aimed kick in the trouser region.  
He raged next to the spring of Holy Water he had ordered his battalion to protect, the spring that would be used to heal the fallen and destroy the Fallen.  
He was a whirlwind of Righteous Anger, and Demons fell at his feet. He held his sword, slippery with golden blood.  
Blood of some of those who were once his brothers, his sisters, his siblings. Light blue tears streaked from his eyes. How_dare they_ turn their back on the Almighty. How _dare they_ question their love for the new creatures She had promised and asked them to love? How _dare they_ allow this hateful poison to spread like wildfire through their bodies?  
He launched a blast of fire from his hands, striking a group of three demons that reverted to the last animal forms they had created and the first form they would take after their Fall*  
And then, suddenly, through no one's fault whatsoever, The Principality took an arrow to the leg. 

_*A lizard, a frog and a snake, but probably no relation. Probably. _

_The tip of the arrow had been coated in the waters of the Styx, the river present in every Hell on Earth. And it burned like poison. It burned the Principality’s legs, spine and up through his golden eyes that stared unblinkingly at the battlefield. The world went white, for just a second, and the Principality could see the others as they truly were. Angels, all of them. Whatever form they took. White wings raged through the air, bashing at each other. Siblings fighting siblings, friends fighting friends. Lovers, fighting lovers fighting friends again. He heard his battalion shouting confused cries, and could feel them rearing upon their enemy. _  
But to the Principality, for that moment, there was no enemy. Just a full-scale family squabble.  
And something, distantly, in the Principalities mind, wanted none of it. It started to murmur. ‘Cause it was so much easier to blame Everything on Them. If it was Them, then nothing is Our fault. But what if Heaven did badly?  
If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No Angel ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things. Demons, I mean. But what if they’re the right ones here?  
‘I can’t do this anymore’, said the Principalities brain. ‘I’m out of here.’ 

_Such is the way of the waters of the Styx. It does not only poison the body, but it also addles the mind as well. It makes us see what is really there.  
If someone would, say, plant an apple tree with roots reaching to the river, that might count as either the worst idea or the best idea in history. _

_The Principality’s eyes crossed and he fell sideways into the spring of Holy Water. The water doused his helmet, it clung to his leg and seared it shut. The Principality felt that he could not return like this.  
‘Almighty?’ He thought, ‘I don’t think I wish to fight anymore.’ _

_And God smiled upon her Angel._

_When the Principality parted his lips to drink, he could feel a new name being given to him. And when he heard it, he found that this was not a name that went with golden eyes and a flaming helmet. This was a name that went with soft and steady hands, one that might illuminate a manuscript or suture a wound rather than wield a blade. He blinked his eyes open and the gold washed away, making way for a gentle blue that mirrored the water of the Holy spring. The same blue that cascaded down his cheeks in the fray of battle. _  
And Aziraphale rose from the spring.  
He saw the blinding light pass through the clouds. He saw the ground split open.  
And he saw the Angels fall. He ran to the nearest one, scrambling at the crack in the ground. He tried to pull him up. Aziraphale failed.  
The Angel Fell.  
Aziraphale took the helmet from his head. He dropped it on the ground. The flames went out. 

_There and then, Aziraphale quietly decided he would never fight again. The only thing that remained of the Principality’s rage, was his flaming sword. _  
In the last memory his brain gave him, he recalled standing near a certain river-grown apple tree in Eden, uncomfortably passing the sword from hand to hand, recalling the hilt to be slippery with golden blood.  
He looked into the distance for a little, rubbing his leg, wishing to be rid of all the trouble. A few yards behind him, a black-and-red serpent rose unseen from the ground. 

Then, he was back in the grey light of Heaven, a battalion standing in line. He thought he might recognise the faces. His leg, once split, now seared shut, only a golden streaked line visible where he had been wounded, ached. He rested a hand on it to put some of Her Grace into it. He limped, slightly, then the pain faded.  
Aziraphale took a deep breath and went to confront his fate.

**Author's Note:**

> For Kazeetie! I really hope you like it!!


End file.
